Boeing 747 Dreamlifter departs Jabara Airport in Wichita

WICHITA, Kan. — A massive cargo-hauling Boeing 747 jet has made a nail-biting takeoff from a small Kansas airport after landing there by mistake on Wednesday.

The 747, flown by a two-person crew with no passengers, intended to touch down late Wednesday at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas, where it was supposed to deliver parts for Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner to a nearby company that makes large sections of the next-generation jet.

But moments after touching down, the pilot seemed confused in his exchanges with air traffic controllers. When told he was 14 kilometres north of his intended destination, he made an unusual admission: “Uh, yes sir, we just landed at the other airport.”

His jet had just landed on the wrong U.S. runway — one that just happened to be long enough — the much smaller Col. James Jabara Airport.

The jet took off again Thursday and within minutes landed at its original destination.

Jabara’s 6,101 feet long, 100 feet wide runway was toward the low end of what Boeing recommends for the 747. It’s intended destination, McConnell, is almost twice as long at 12,000 feet.

How much runway the plane needs varies depending on weather, the weight of the loaded plane and the airport’s elevation. The Dreamlifter is capable of weighing as much as 363,000 kilograms.

But the takeoff was aided by a headwind, according to the U.S. National Weather Service. Winds were at 34 kms an hour shortly before 1 p.m. local time. Planes require less runway distance when taking off into the wind.

The plane lifted off without incident shortly after 1:15 p.m. local time Thursday with a new crew. It landed at McConnell at 1:35 p.m.

Because Jabara doesn’t have a control tower, arriving and departing planes would have to announce their maneuvers over a common radio frequency. Pilots flying into uncontrolled airports are on their own to watch for traffic.

The plane had flown into an area where there are three airports with similar runway configurations: the air force base, the Jabara airfield and a third facility in between called Beech Airport.

That could help explain the mistake. Pilots also say it can be tough to tell a long runway from a shorter one on final approach. And Jabara is directly on the path toward McConnell.

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Over the radio, the pilot could be heard mixing up east and west, acknowledging he could not read his own handwriting and getting distracted from the conversation by “looking at something else.”

While it’s rare for a pilot to land at the wrong airport, confusion is common.

Once every month or two, a pilot headed toward Wichita’s Mid-Continent airport begins to turn toward McConnell by mistake, said Brent Spencer, a former air traffic controller in Wichita who is now an assistant professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Mid-Continent and McConnell “have an almost identical runway setup, so it was not at all uncommon for an airliner or someone coming in from the east … to pick up the wrong runway lights,” he said.

Boeing owns the plane involved in the mistaken landing, but it’s operated by Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, a New York-based company that provides crews or planes to companies that need them.

An Atlas Air spokeswoman declined to answer questions and referred inquiries to Boeing. Atlas climbed as much as 1.4% after the plane took off. The shares traded at $37.34 at 3:27 p.m. in New York, up 2.6%.

Boeing spokesman Doug Alder said the company would be consulting with Atlas to “find out exactly what happened so that it doesn’t happen again.”

The Federal Aviation Administration planned to investigate whether the pilot followed controllers’ instructions or violated any federal regulations.

The modified 747 is one of a fleet of four that hauls parts around the world to make Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner. The “Dreamlifter” is a 747-400 with its body expanded to hold whole fuselage sections and other large parts.

According to flight-tracking service FlightAware, this particular DreamLifter has been shuttling between Kansas and Italy, where the centre fuselage section and part of the tail of the 787 are made.

Although rare, landings by large aircraft at smaller airports have happened from time to time.

In July last year, a cargo plane bound for MacDill Air Force base in Florida landed without incident at the small Peter O. Knight Airport nearby.

The following month, a Silver Airways pilot making one of the airline’s first flights to Bridgeport, West Virginia, mistakenly landed his Saab 340 at a tiny airport in nearby Fairmont.